


Cutting My Mind Off

by TheMarkOfEyghon



Series: Once More With Glitter [18]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentions of Past Torture, Sometimes a family is a boy and the demon that lives in his head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:42:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMarkOfEyghon/pseuds/TheMarkOfEyghon
Summary: Does he remember? Remember the flashes of consciousness, the fight to regain control over himself… the terrible pain, ripping him apart from the inside?ORRandall has a difficult conversation with an equally difficult person.





	Cutting My Mind Off

Randall stares at the dark shadows under his eyes and the scar over his eyebrow, running his index finger over the faint line of pink that curves down over his jaw and neck, down to his collarbone, echoes of that vampire’s growl ringing in his head. He remembers being backed up against the bars of his cage for the first time that Ronald put one in there with him, bid him to control it or die. Remembers the sickening sting of flesh being cut open with a dirty, sharp nail. There’s another scar near it, another reminder of torment. He traces that one too and then leans his head forward and rests his forehead against the mirror, trying to steady his breathing.  
  
He hadn’t really… looked at himself. Hadn’t tried to locate and catalog all the marks on him. Wonders if it’s too late to hide them all from Rupert or if he should still try… and then wonders how the hell he would, because there are so many of them. No way to pretend that it didn’t happen, even for an evening. He’s going to have to think of some plausible, civilian explanation if he’s asked about them tonight. Nothing is coming to mind, though. No logical cover up for all of this. No -  
  
“Human vanity is something I never really understood,” A low, terribly familiar voice growls out to him. Randall keeps his eyes shut, but his entire body tenses anyway. “As far as beings go, you’re not terribly well made.”  
  
“I’m not looking at myself because I think I’m unbearably attractive. I’m just looking at the scars. I’ve never seen some of these ones before.”  
  
Randall opens his eyes in spite of himself and turns his head… staring over at himself, where he’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub. It’s as unsettling now as it was the first time and every time in-between. Well, actually, maybe even a little more so. Because now he knows what the differences are, sees youth in the visage of himself that he doesn’t have anymore. This other him has his dark hair styled in the fashion he’d been fond of before he died and none of the scars. He’s wearing the same clothes that Randall had died in and lifts his hand in a lazy wave, a knowing smirk that doesn’t belong to Randall’s range of emotions contorting his lips. But the most pressing difference -- the most obvious -- is his eyes. They’re not brown like Randall’s. They glow a golden green.  
  
“No need to be put out, little human,” Eyghon says, baring all of Randall’s teeth at him. “I can only work with what I can find in your mind. This is how you see yourself… how you saw yourself for so long. I couldn’t have made changes to the projection even if I wanted to.”  
  
“I know, I know. I just… it’s weirder, now.”  
  
“Perhaps.”  
  
Eyghon (Randall?) stands and stretches, unnecessarily, and Randall has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. For all his talk of disliking humans, he’d picked up quite a few traits from all their time together. Traits that Randall tries not to call him out on -- having a discontented demon inside of him was one of the more unpleasant sensations he’d ever sat through.  
  
“I have questions,” Eyghon says to him. “I waited. But I want answers now.”  
  
“I know you do,” Randall sighs, turning back to the mirror. He picks up the comb he’d found and starts to brush his hair back from his face, giving up on any fancies about hiding the damage that had been done to his body. At least the large scars, the ones of his chest, stomach, and legs, would be hidden. “And I’ll try to answer but I don’t know everything.”  
  
Eyghon makes a rumbling sound at that. Something like a laugh, but he’s too irritated to be wholly amused.  
  
“You have an explanation for this. Tell me, little human, why did we not reach inside the grossly inferior being downstairs and pull his innards out?”  
  
“I knew you were the one that kept pushing the violent fantasies… you gotta knock that off, E, I have a really hard time keeping a straight face through those.”  
  
“Silence,” Eyghon snarled at him, drawing Randall’s questioning gaze back to him. It’s...so, so weird, seeing his own face contorted with inhuman fury. Even weirder that it’s been so long since the last time Eyghon was truly angry with him. “We are free! The energy that contained us within those bars has been lifted. And you… you allow them to put this on us?”  
  
He holds up his - Randall’s - hand and Randall’s actual hand lifts up in unison. It’s a bizarre feeling, a puppet on a string, and he makes an unhappy noise in response to it. Eyghon ignores that and gestures to the golden band.  
  
“It brings us pain. Why do you allow this? We are so much better than that. We could have killed both of them -”  
  
“- in a room full of witnesses? E, how the hell would I have explained -”  
  
“- and run, finally free. This place, it’s energy, we are standing on a mouth to hell. I can harness that energy, build us up to our full power -”  
  
“ - that to people? And running is out of the question, where the hell would we go? I don’t think you’re -”  
  
“- and return to that place, and tear it to the ground. All of them would tremble before us! Make them pay for what they’ve done to us!”  
  
“And then what?” Randall asks, trying hard to keep his voice low even as Eyghon shouts. Has to remember that no one else can hear him and that matching his intensity is going to do more harm than good. “What after that? We destroy them and then…? Dot, dot, dot, E. That’s all we have to work with afterward. It’s never going to be the same.”  
  
“Do you think I don’t know that?”  
  
Randall drops the comb back onto the counter and shrugs, wrapping a towel around his waist and glancing at the door. He should keep moving, get dressed, keep Deacon from getting too suspicious… but if he starts pissing Eyghon off, now, by making him think that he’s not listening to him, the demon will start throwing furniture and that’s even harder to explain than why he’s been talking to himself.  
  
“I know that,” Eyghon says, clarifying just in case that Randall does think he’s unaware. “Our union has been an endless source of frustration and fascination for me since the moment they forced us to come back into your misshapen meat vessel.”  
  
“You really don’t get vanity, huh?” Randall interjected, wryly, earning himself another angry look.  
  
“We have an opportunity here. To run. To find become the rulers of our own domain, again. I miss my hellscape. I think even you would like it there, my little human. Let me show you the wonders of causing pain rather than receiving. Let me -”  
  
“No.”  
  
Randall rounds on Eyghon and towers over himself.  
  
“We’re not doing that. I don’t like this any more than you do. Don’t you think I want to run? Can’t you feel how much I want to get the fuck out of here? But we can’t. I can’t. Not as long as I know the Council has it out for Rupert. Whatever we had, before… your hell dimension, my _life_. It’s over now. They took it from us. And… I’m not going to let them do that to him. I’m going to find out what they’re planning… no, WE are going to find out. And then as soon as we know… we’ll revisit the destroying everything plan.”  
  
Eyghon sulks, visibly.  
  
“I am angry about that, too. It caused you pain to see him again, I felt it. I wanted to rip his throat out. I remember his face, the last face before our death. Don’t you?”  
  
Randall’s breath catches in his throat at the question. Does he _remember_? Remember the flashes of consciousness, the fight to regain control over himself… the terrible pain, ripping him apart from the inside?  
  
“...It did hurt to see him again.” Randall says, quietly, staring down into the sink. “And it’ll probably keep hurting. But that’s not the kind of pain you can shift for me, E. It’s emotional.”  
  
“Yech.” Eyghon makes a sound of disgust, deep in his throat. “I loathe the taste of your misery. Your sentiment coats the back of our throat and rots when you refuse to say what you want to.”  
  
“It’s not fun for me, either, but that’s the way it has to be. At least for now. Just… try to remember that we’re a team. Remember? You and I.”  
  
“You’re making your choices for him. Not us.”  
  
“...Yeah. Well, that’s why the ‘you’ tends to be smarter than the ‘I’, but be on my side anyway.”  
  
“For now.” Eyghon mutters.  
  
His form begins to flicker. Fading slowly.  
  
“But when the time comes, I will take control. You will rest in the back of our mind and I will do what you don’t have the courage to, little human.”  
  
Randall curls his fingers into a fist, nails biting into his palm. “I can stay awake for a while longer.”  
  
Eyghon said nothing to that. There’s a rumbling of discontent in the back of his mind, but total silence otherwise. And it’s then and only then that Randall forces himself to exit the bathroom and pad his way to the master bedroom.


End file.
